Having been recently taking a closer look at the witness voting situation on Hive, it has become apparent that a lot of accounts aren't paying much attention to the topic and numerous people have said that they haven't even thought about witness votes since Hive first went live. To reiterate the importance of Hive witness selection - they are the main people who decide on whether changes to Hive on the blockchain level go ahead or not. Aside from actually running the servers that keep the blockchain running, their own personal views and preferences play a role in shaping the future of the entire Hive blockchain.
Each top 20 witness can receive significant rewards for this. When Hive prices recently peaked, each top 20 witness was being paid the equivalent of $250k annually for their involvement in Hive (not including money made from post reward upvotes and curation - plus other avenues). Clearly, the capacity for witnesses to make decisions that benefit and serve the Hive community is essential for all of our success.
Part of my focus here is to make sure that I use the $1.7+ Million USD worth of witness voting power that I have been given to vote for witnesses that both serve the blockchain through wise analysis, decision making and behaviour - but with a specific focus on respect for free speech and holding the balance in the community in an effective way. Clearly everyone has their own interpretation of what that means, so I will do my best to clarify my interpretation of it over time, so that witnesses can put forward a case for receiving a vote powered by this stake. Currently, I have numerous free witness vote slots, so if you are a witness or know of a witness who specifically supports free speech as a priority, then let me know in a PM or in the comments below.
Thanks to @Arcange, we have a version of the witness vote tracker app that was run by 
This app is a great way to learn more about how each witness is in the position that they are, so you can then perhaps speak with friends who may be still voting for people who you can see are operating in ways that are not aligning with the values of your friends who may not be paying so much attention to the politics of it all. Hive witness voting happens in realtime, but too often it can seem like we are operating more in an old world paradigm of having an election every few years! It would be good to shake this up and have more variation on the blockchain. This is the motivation behind introducing witness vote decay, which was integrated in via the last Hard Fork on Hive - but was given a 1 year delay before starting (for reasons I don't agree with) and so we have to wait another few months before it activates.
You might think that you only have a small stake and cannot affect much in the grand scheme of things - and on your own you are correct - but with enough people shifting sentiment and making this clear to others, the snowflakes can become an avalanche ;)
Note: You can click on the notepad icon next to the witness in the list to view a list of all the accounts that are upvoting the witness in question. Also note, I know there was a bug in Drakos' version of the code that meant that some voters weren't showing up in these lists.. I don't know if 
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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